Tuesday, March 12, 2013

F?@K KNOWS - Review

If you are from south
you might be knowing about a festival by name "Ugadi" which is also called "Gudipadwa" in
Maharashtra or may be "Bisakhi" in Punjab. I have tasted the special Ugadi pickle and it’s a different feeling when you taste it. It has 6 different tastes like sour, bitter, salty , sweet so on. Symbolically it marks the beginning of the new-year
and a new age with all flavors of life blended in one pickle!

Reading Shailendra Singh's
F?@KKnows gave me the same feeling :) The title intrigued me and the introductory note seemed attractive.
Finally I clicked that button to review and have no regrets at all as I enjoyed
reading it !! Subtle lesson for life & a humorous take on all the shit load
we bear!

An
excerpt from the book- " You can only make fun of something which is
popular - otherwise the joke ain't funny !" Similarly the author cuts
jokes on all the common but popular issues people face in daily life.
The book starts in a light and giggly tone but then turns serious at certain
page but you don't realize when and where it is as you are enjoying the roller
coaster ride! The book is all about telling and re-telling you all the facts
which you already know so that you really understand them and try implementing
them and just feel overwhelmed by looking at a new you in the mirror. I was
never in to self -improvement books like Norman Vincent's or Dale Carnegie's. I
actually read them but never really followed whatever is told by them. The
primary reason is basically we never like being told. Even though few quotes
from the books were my favorites and I embedded them in my signature I never
really heard to my "gut" or "heart" after reading them but
after reading the innovative and interactive book by Shailendra Singh I for the
first time smiled even while reading a self-help book which is not heavy or
preachy yet gives a deep insight in to your day to day issues!

The book clicks as it
has author's experiences and the way he narrates them in a cool and casual tone
makes you feel that you are actually talking to him face to face. It might not
be for high intellectuals or for people who use heavy vocab or who know it
all. I am not exaggerating but I imagined him sitting beside me in one or
two instances. In the chapter where he described about having cheese cake and
compared it to having sex with the right partner I felt it was an amazing
analogy. Whatever he told is absolutely true. Again we all know it but F Knows
why we never hear to what we know :) The most touching chapter to me is the one
where he wrote how he felt after his father’s death, the words written by his
father mentioning him and his Thailand trip followed by Tsunami. The truth just
hits you like that tsunami wave when you finish reading it. Go read and
understand it because you already know it! You may also
actually practice the Chi F?@K Po method - Block divert and embrace
technique

The author easily
connects with too many readers as he mentions their usual fears, likes ,
dislikes , the demons they fight on a daily basis, the movies he loves and what
he learnt from them and I am sure most of us love few of those movies, we all
being mad about cinema. The way he described the gut feeling and listening to
gut is the best part of the whole book to me. It keeps coming in every page -
flushing off mind and listening to the gut part! All the chapter names are very innovative
and will be imprinted in your mind for long and if you really want to they will
be there forever but for this as told by Shailendra you really should want them to be
there . You don't have to keep them there :)."PEACOCK IN THE FOREST" , "WHAT GOES IN MUST COME OUT" , "DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU WHEN YOU COME OUT" are few titles among the lot which were gripping. I would love to see few
celebrities respond to few questions posed by the author in the book if at all
they read the book!

The way author
describes " How to read the book" in the prologue and the
acknowledgements in the epilogue will definitely leave you in smiles. He fears
he will be questioned by big authors like Deepak Chopra or Salman Rushdie for
bringing down the levels of Indian writing but all his fears can go take a hoot
as who the F?@K will bother about the intellect or language once he/she grabs
this book! I am not faking when I say I feel better after reading the last page. I feel I
should really jot down the F?@K it list and email it to the author. Have to
really see if he replies back in 6months! Oh you don't know what F?@k it list
is right? It’s just a bucket list with a cool name and much more emphasis is laid on
the list!! You will also come across many naive as well as novel terms in the
book which you will enjoy knowing and mind you the word F?@K shows up in every page or paragraph. If you are allergic to the terminology you may not enjoy the book!

Few chapter titles and
snippets I really loved from the book.

MATH OF ME TIME - tells how much time you
really got for your self!

I'D RATHER HAVE THEM LAUGH WITH ME WHILE
I'M ALIVE, THAN CRY FOR ME WHEN I DIE

SWEETLY CRACKED- You are happy. You know
it. You want to show it . DONT. The world might hate you for it

THE DEFINITION OF A GOOD TIME IS WHEN YOU
DECIDE TO HAVE ONE

There are few more but
I really feel you should read them all in the book!

All in all after
reading the book if you have written down Who you are and what you really want
? and your F?@K it list is ready and you have already started implementing it
then the first person who would be happy is - No mud heads it’s not Shailendra
Singh - its "YOU" and only "YOU" :-) . The author if at all has
time to know that someone got better after reading his book needless to say he
would be elated. If at all I meet him in future I would surely love to
"talk" and exchange smiles which very few people genuinely do these
days!

Shailendra Singh is a
sports marketing guru, an advertising whiz and a Bollywood producer. He is
associated with Precept Advertising, the Sunburn festival and he made movies
such as Pyaar Main Kabhi Kabhi and Phir Milenge after some incidents in his own
life

Few things in the book
were repetitive but can be ignored as we ought to read them again and again
but it slowed down my reading pace a bit .One more thing which was not
clear is about the legal issue in Middle east in 2008. May be the author chose
not to disclose it but I was very eager to know it. May be I will mail him and
ask :)

Other than the above
two things I absolutely loved the book and recommend it to anyone who wants to
feel better. You already feel better and enlightened?? Whom are you kidding? Go
grab the book!

It was such a good feeling when I finished reading it as I realized the author has fulfilled his passion as he "wanted" to write! Three cheers to him for his accomplishment!